Mountains in My Heart: A Passion for Climbing

Kaltenbrunner was the first woman to summit all fourteen 8,000m peaks (1998-2011) without supplemental oxygen or high-altitude porters. This is the first English-translation of her original German-language book ‘Ganz bei Mir’. She covers her early years learning to climb in Austria, her personal life, her training as an oncology nurse, and her ever-present passion for mountains, especially the Himalaya. Her love of being in the mountains shines through in her writing: The important thing was not the race to be the first woman to climb the 8,000-meter peaks, which she lost to Edurne Pasaban, but rather to experience the mountains and climb them in her self-sufficient style. She shares the challenges, dangers, and euphoria of her high-altitude climbs, detailing medical emergencies and her own feelings about being high in the mountains.